c00ExerciseAnswers.
indd Page 1 12/16/15 8:28 PM user
SOLUTIONS TO THE PRELIMINARIES EXERCISES
S EC T IO N 1.1: Introduction to Chance Models
P R E L I MI NA R I E S
Section P.1
P.1.1
a. Observational units: 47 students; Vari-
ables: (1) How much each student spent
($); (2) what the student was told (rebate or
bonus)
b. Observational units: Typical American
consumers; Variable: (1) How much each
consumer spent ($)
c. Observational units: College students;
Variables: (1) GPA of each student, (2)
Whether or not each student pulls all-nighters
(yes/no)
d. Observational units: College students;
Variables: (1) Alcohol consumption of each
student (e.g., typical drinks per week), (2)
Residence situation of each student (on-
campus, off-campus with parents, off-campus
without parents)
e. Observational units: Cats; Variables: (1)
How far the cat can jump (inches); (2) How
long the cat is (inches)
P.1.2
a. Observational units: Subjects; Variable:
(1) Estimate of song length (seconds)
b. Observational units: Newborns; Vari-
ables: (1) Gender of child (boy or girl), (2)
Do both parents smoke (both or neither)?
c. Observational units: Overweight women;
Variables: (1) Diet (Atkins, Zone, Ornish), (2)
Change in body mass index for each woman
d. Observational units: Students; Variables:
(1) Exam score for each student, (2) Color of
paper on which the student took the exam
(blue or green)
e. Observational units: 8-hour shifts; Vari-
ables: (1) Was there at least one death on the
shift? (yes/no), (2) Did Kristin Gilbert work
the shift? (yes/no)
P.1.3
a. Variables: (1) How much each student
spent ($, quantitative), (2) what the student
was told (rebate or bonus, categorical-binary)
b. Variable: (1) How much each consumer
spent ($, quantitative)
c. Variables: (1) GPA of each student
(quantitative), (2) Whether or not each
student pulls all-nighters (yes/no, categori-
cal-binary)
d. Variables: (1) Alcohol consumption
of each student (e.g., typical drinks per
week, quantitative), (2) Residence situation
/208/WB01616_ISM/9781119195115/ch01/text_s
of each student (on-campus, off-campus
with parents, off-campus without parents,
categorical–not binary)
e. Variables: (1) How far the cat can jump
(inches, quantitative), (2) How long the cat
is (inches, quantitative)
P.1.4
a. Variable: (1) Estimate of song length
(seconds, quantitative)
b. (1) Gender of child (boy or girl, categorical-
binary), (2) Do both parents smoke (both or
neither, categorical-binary).
c. (1) Diet (Atkins, Zone, Ornish, categorical
– not binary), (2) Change in body mass in-
dex for each woman (quantitative)
d. Variables: (1) Exam score for each student
(%, quantitative), (2) Color of paper on
which the student took the exam (blue or
green, categorical-binary)
e. Variables: (1) Death on the shift? (yes/no,
categorical-binary), (2) Did Kristin Gilbert
work the shift? (yes/no, categorical-binary)
P.1.5
Answers will vary.
P.1.6
Answers will vary.
P.1.7
a. Violin students
b. How much time spent practicing
c. Which of the three groups (international
soloist, good violinists, teachers) the student
was in
P.1.8
a. Each of the 100 spins of the racquet
b. whether the racquet lands with the label
facing up or down
c. categorical (and binary)
P.1.9
a. Quantitative variable
b. Research question
c. Categorical variable
d. Categorical variable
e. Research question
P.1.10
a. The 6300 public restroom users
b. Gender, Washed hands (yes/no), Location
c. Do women tend to wash their hands
after using public restrooms more often
than men?
1
d. Do people in certain major cities in the
United States tend to wash their hands more
often than those in other major cities?
P.1.11
a. Do novice skydivers tend to have higher
levels of self-reported anxiety prior to a
skydive than experienced skydivers?
b. i. The 24 skydivers ii. From a parachute
center in Northern England iii. Novice or
expert skydiver (Categorical) and anxiety
score (quantitative)
c. i. 43 among novice skydivers and 27
among experienced skydivers, ii. There are
11 first time skydivers and 13 experienced
skydivers.
d. Self-reported anxiety levels are substan-
tially higher among novice skydivers.
e. That these 24 skydivers have similar
anxiety levels to most skydivers. In other
words, that these 24 ‘represent’ (look like)
most skydivers.
f. If older people tend to have lower anxiety
levels, this could explain the difference. In
a future study, researchers could make sure
the ages of the novice and experienced sky
divers are similar.
P.1.12
a. Do novice skydivers tend to have higher
levels of salivary cortisol prior to a skydive
than experienced skydivers?
b. i. The 24 skydivers ii. From a parachute
center in Northern England iii. Novice or
expert skydiver (Categorical) and cortisol
level (quantitative)
c. i. 8 among novice skydivers and 10
among experienced skydivers. ii. There are
11 first time skydivers and 13 experienced
skydivers.
d. Average cortisol levels are similar between
the two groups.
e. That these 24 skydivers have similar
anxiety levels to most skydivers. In other
words that these 24 ‘represent’ (look like)
most skydivers.
f. Since the deployment mechanisms were
different between the two groups, differ-
ences (or similarity) in anxiety levels could
be attributed more to the deployment mech-
anisms than to experience level. Future
studies could use similar deployment mech-
anisms in both groups.
P.1.13
Answers will vary.
1
c00ExerciseAnswers.indd Page 2 12/16/15 8:28 PM user
2 S OL U T IO N S T O T H E P RE L IM IN A RIES EX ERC IS ES
P.1.14
Answers will vary.
P.1.15
Answers will vary.
P.1.16
Answers will vary.
P.1.17
Answers will vary.
Section P.2
P.2.1
a. We would expect Sandy to have the
larger mean because temperatures in San
Diego tend to be warmer than in New York.
b. We would expect Nellie to have a larger
standard deviation because the high temper-
atures in New York City should vary more
throughout the year (high temperatures may
not get above 30 in the winter but may exceed
100 in the summer), whereas in San Diego
there is much less variation in daily tempera-
tures, almost all values falling rather close to
the overall average high temperature.
P.2.2
a. Amanda, because there is more consis-
tency in her scores: they are all equal to each
other.
b. Charlene, because there are large differ-
ences between her individual scores and her
average score.
P.2.3
Quiz B has the smallest standard deviation
(zero) because all the quiz scores are the
same.
Quiz D has the next smallest standard devi-
ation because most of the scores are equal to
the mean, with only four students deviating
from the mean by 2 points.
Quiz C has the second largest standard
deviation because four students differ from
the mean by 2 points as with Quiz D, but
four other students also deviate by one
point, so there is less consistency in the
scores than in Quiz D.
Quiz A has the largest standard deviation.
All quiz scores deviate by 5 points (as much
as possible) from the mean score.
P.2.4
The distribution of sentence lengths is
mostly symmetric with some non-symme-
try due to a few unusually large sentence
lengths. A typical sentence length is about
10 words, but there are many sentences that
consist of 8 to 15 words. Beyond that, there
is not much consistency in the sentence
lengths. Two sentences were as small as 2
words and the longest sentence contained
almost 40 words.
P.2.5
a. Replacement 3/43 ≈ 0.07; Regular 8/48
≈ 0.167
b. Replacement 5/48 ≈ 0.104; Regular
11/43 ≈ 0.256
c. The replacement referees tended to have
longer games (about 195 minutes on average
compared to 185 minutes).
d. The replacement referees also tended to
have more variability in the game lengths.
e. Neither distribution of game durations is
symmetric, because both have a few games
that took a very long time compared to the
others. The games with replacement referees
tended to take a bit longer than those with
regular referees, roughly 10 minutes longer
on average. Games with replacement referees
also displayed more variability in game
durations, as compared to the slightly
greater consistency in game durations for
regular referees. The two distributions show
considerable overlap: Both types of referees
saw most games take between roughly 180
and 210 minutes (3–3.5 hours).
P.2.6
The distributions of total penalties ap-
pear more similar than the distributions of
game lengths. Both distributions are fairly
symmetric, centered around 12 penalties,
with a minimum of 4 penalties and a max-
imum of 24-25 penalties. The games with
23-25 penalties are a bit unusual for both
types of referees, with a few more of these
extreme games for the replacement referees.
P.2.7
a. The distribution of predicted high temper-
atures in San Luis Obispo County on July 8,
2012 shows a bimodal (two clustered) distri-
bution, with many predictions between 63 and
73 degrees, but with another cluster of predic-
tions between 85 and 96 degrees. The center
of the overall distribution is between 70 to 75.
b. The bimodal distribution is likely due
to widely varying geography in San Luis
Obispo County, including locations nearer
to the ocean (cooler) and farther away from
the ocean (warmer).
P.2.8
The distributions of high temperatures
between SLO-County and California in
general are similar, with two major clus-
/208/WB01616_ISM/9781119195115/ch01/text_s
ters of observations: one around 60-75, and
another between 85 and 100. The California
distribution also shows a few very high
predicted temperatures (over 100).
P.2.9
a. US, CA, SLO-County, World (highest to
lowest average high temperature)
b. World, CA, US, SLO-County (most to
least variability)
c. Anchorage or Juneau, Alaska
d. Northern and southern hemisphere cities
Section P.3
P.3.1
About 60% of all new businesses (in the long
run) close or change owners within the first
three years.
P.3.2
A is a true statement. With B, there is no
indication of the long-run nature of the
relative frequency, and in C, we are also not
guaranteed that there will be a large number
of customers or that they also only carry
fifty cents.
P.3.3
B, C and E cannot be probabilities, because
probabilities must be numbers between 0
and 1 or percentages between 0% and 100%.
P.3.4
a. If you repeatedly draw M&Ms at random
a very large number of times, in the long-run
20% of those M&Ms will be red.
b. If you repeatedly play the lottery a very
large number of times, in the long run, you
will win .1% of the times of you play.
c. If you repeatedly record whether or not
it rains for a large number of days with the
same weather conditions as tomorrow, in
the long run you will see rain on 30% of
such days.
d. If you repeatedly select an adult American
at random a larger number of times, in the
long run, roughly 30% of the time the selected
adult will vote to get rid of the penny.
e. If you repeatedly select a sample of 100
adults from this city and record the propor-
tion that want to get rid of the penny for
each sample, in the long run roughly 1.5%
of those samples will have at most 20% of
the sample wanting to get rid of the penny.
P.3.5
a. If these two teams play each other many,
many times under identical conditions, Team
A will win 2/3 of the games in the long run.
c00ExerciseAnswers.indd Page 3 12/16/15 8:28 PM user
b. No, this is a long-run proportion, not the
proportion for every set of 3 games.
c. No, although we expect the proportion
to tend to be closer to 2/3, this is still not a
guarantee.
d. We expect the proportion of games that
Team A wins to be close to 2/3, but with
so many different possibilities that are also
close to two-thirds (such as 18, 19, 21, 22
wins), there could still be a low probability
that A wins exactly 2/3 of the 30 games.
P.3.6
a. Team A would rather play the best-of-
three series, because in the longer series
there is less of a chance for the weaker team
to achieve the upset win multiple times.
b. Let rolls of 1 or 2 represent Team B winning
a game and 3-6 represent Team A. Roll the die
and record who wins the game until one team
has won two games (two or three times).
c. Repeat the steps in (b) a large number of
times (say 1000) and record how often team
A wins divided by the number of repetitions.
d. If we repeatedly play best-of-three series,
then in the long run Team A will win 74.1%
S O LU T IO N S T O T H E P RELIM IN A RIES E XE RCI SE S
of those series. (Note, this is higher than the
2/3 chance of winning any one game.)
P.3.7
a. Let heads represent a boy and tails a
girl. Flip the coin four times and record the
number of boys (heads) in those four chil-
dren (tosses). Repeat this a large number of
times (say 1,000) and look at what propor-
tion of those 1,000 repetitions resulted in 2
boys and 2 girls.
b. In a very large number of couples
with four children, roughly 37.5% of the
couples will have 2 boys and 2 girls (assuming
each birth is equally likely to be a boy or
a girl).
c. 100 − 37.5% = 62.5%
d. Having exactly two of each gender is
pretty specific. Even though a specific 3-1 or
4-0 split is less likely than a 2-2 split, there
are more ways to obtain a result other than
a 2-2 split.
P.3.8
a. In many, many rooms each containing
50 people, 97% of the rooms will have at
least two people with the same birthday
/208/WB01616_ISM/9781119195115/ch01/text_s
3
b. Less than 97% since there are a lot of
pairs of people in a room of 50 people that
don’t involve you—only 49 pairs of people
involve you.
c. Draw a slip a paper out of the hat. Write
down the number on a piece of paper.
Replace the slip. Mix up the slips. Repeat
this 49 more times until you have at least
50 numbers written down. If any of the
50 numbers are the same, then you have a
‘match.’ Repeat this entire process many,
many times and see in what proportion of
the sets of 50 numbers there is a match.
d. Draw a slip a paper out of the hat. Write
down the number on a piece of paper—call
this ‘your birthday.’ Replace the slip. Mix
up the slips. Repeat this 49 more times
until you have at least 50 numbers written
down. If any of the 49 numbers are the same
as your birthday, then you have a ‘match.’
Repeat this entire process many, many times
and see in what proportion of the sets of 50
numbers there is a match.